


When You Are At The End Of Your Rope, Tie A Knot and Hold On

by Stagcore



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Depression, Fluff and Angst, Hurt Magnus Bane, M/M, Magnus Bane Deserves Nice Things, Magnus Bane Has Panic Attacks, Magnus Bane-centric, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Sad Magnus, Self-Harm, Suicide, dont hate me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-01-13 05:00:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18461990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stagcore/pseuds/Stagcore
Summary: So the wonderful @I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own let me expand on their headcanon of Magnus carving things into himself but having glamoured them away so that nobody can ever see them. But when his magic is locked inside him, the glamours lift revealing what he had done to himself. Their fic is called "To Write Love On His Arms"This is a fic that contains graphic self harm, do not read if you are upset by this. Also this is set in a universe where Lorenzo doesn't take his loft:)





	When You Are At The End Of Your Rope, Tie A Knot and Hold On

**Author's Note:**

  * For [I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own](https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own/gifts).



Magnus wakes up with the light shining in from a crack in his curtains and rolls over to the other side of the bed with a groan. His already, too awake, too sober, too mortal body registering the hollow, emptiness that comes from a mixture of several lifetimes of fighting depression and trauma and the bitter, void of not having any magic. The blanket's he has pulled over his face is comfortable and provides the only tiny bit of comfort it is capable of. That is all his existence seems to be now, clinging on to the tiniest bits of comfort he can. Hoping it would be enough to bring him back from this horrible, nightmare. 

His whole body feels wrong and he's sure if he had any energy left, he would be clawing at his skin with his finger nails. Desperate to dig out his magic from within his bones. Desperate to feel whole again. But he doesn't have that energy, and he is not so sure he's ungrateful for that. He hears the tell-tale jingle of keys in the door before his wards tell him that someone has entered the loft and it only serves as insult to injury. He used to be The High Warlock for God's sake. He knew everything that happened within his city and now he hardly knows what's going on in his own home. 

"Babe?" Magnus' boyfriend calls through the loft and he desperately wills away the tears in his eyes. He doesn't want Alexander to see him like this, not for what seems like the one-hundredth time since they got back from the medical bay of the institute. Vulnerable and raw like a fresh wound. Following Alec with his ears, Magnus detects when his boyfriend comes into the room. His light, shadowhunter footsteps reach into the door way, his right hand grabbing the white doorframe. He can sense the frown on his face and it makes Magnus feel impossibly worse.

"Magnus?" Alec drops his voice to a low whisper even though he knows Magnus isn't sleeping. Padding softly across the room, Alec pulls off his boots and crawls in beside his boyfriend. Magnus feels the mattress dip and then the warm, encompassing arms of his boyfriend. And with that, he welcomes the creeping, relief of sleep.

Though relief never lasts long, not for Magnus. Never for such cursed, monstrous beings such as himself and soon enough, he's sat up screaming, clawing at his throat and heaving lungs full of ash and dust as the world burns around him. He can still feel his father's hand on his shoulder, comforting as they watch another village burn down around them together. Children are crying and parents are running, looking for their children in the chaos of the fire. Everything that was goes up in smoke and he can't bare it. 

"Magnus!" He hears Alec shout from somewhere distantly, there is pressure on his wrists, taking them away from his throat, his eyes, his face and he just wants to yell and kickout. His vest top clings to his skin with sweat and, God, he just wants it all to stop. 

"Magnus, please" Alec says again and finally, he blinks awake, his hands are in Alec's and the first thing he notices is that the first of his Glamours have faded. Leaving him open and defenceless to on lookers. The second thing he notices is that Alec has tears in his eyes, his bright, blue eyes shining in the dim sunlight. It makes his heart hurt. All words die in his mouth like all the loves he's had before and he wants nothing more than to die. Finally making himself look down at his arm, where years of scaring and repeated abuse from the tips of knives, glass, blades danced along his pale brown skin and away from Alec's tearful horror. 

R  
A  
K  
S  
A  
S  
A

Alec puts his hands down and drapes the soft, blue blanket around Magnus again and moves off of the bed, turning round when he hears a soft, heartwretching sob come from his lover who looks like he wants to fold up and disappear. It breaks Alec's heart. Leaning forward, Alec quickly whispers words of love and a few light kisses to Magnus' cheeks and forehead. "It's okay, I'm getting you something, okay?" He says, placing another kiss on his boyfriend's head and runs off quickly. When Alec returns, Magnus is tracing the scar tissue on his arms. Alec looks quickly from his lover's arms to his face and holds out his favourite sweater. It's blue and soft and most importantly, it smells of Alec.

"I thought, if you need privacy or..." Alec stumbles over words, the meaning he has in his heart has never translated well when it got to speech but he hopes that Magnus sees the meaning through it anyways. Magnus nods with a sad smile and let's Alec help him pull the sweater over him, quickly glancing away at his other arm and the letter's carved almost lazily there.

J  
A  
H  
A  
T

It's sleeves come to just over the tips of Magnus' fingers and Alec grips his own hands tightly in his lap. Magnus is absentmindedly picking at the worn thread, not looking Alec in the eyes. The bedroom becomes pregnant with silence "We don't have to talk about them if you don't want to." Alec says as he drops their hands in his lap, his fingers tracing Magnus' skin, smoothing his palms with the tips of his fingers, noting his chipped nail polish and little scars that came from age. Bringing his boyfriend's hands up to his mouth, Alec delicately kissed each knuckle. 

"Alec," Magnus whispered, his eyes filling up with tears. His voice was still rough from crying and the back of his throat felt raw. "My other glamours are going to wear off,"

"And we'll deal with it together," Alec whispers back, making himself comfortable on their bed beside Magnus. Wrapping him up in his arms, Alec gently kisses the side of his boyfriend's face. "We'll get through this together"

**Author's Note:**

> Rakasa is Indonesian for Monster and Jahat is Indonesian for Evil >:)


End file.
